In the past few years, computers have been used to run applications unheard of twenty years ago, or even ten years ago. Historically, computers were expensive and therefore only affordable to large corporations. These corporations usually utilized computers in various data processing applications. Typically, the employees responsible for running the computers had considerable expertise. When interacting with a computer via an input device such as a keyboard, for example, these individuals were sufficiently skilled such that they knew which keys on the keyboard they had to press at any particular time. Furthermore, the computer user typically interacted with the computer minimally at most. The user would enter in data prior to a particular "job" or task being run by the computer, and then would view the results on a monochrome screen.
Today, however, computers are used by people from all walks of life, who frequently have little or no training in running the computers. Personal computers, such as those sold by companies such as Gateway 2000, have become relatively affordable to the average consumer. People buying such computers usually need a level of hand-holding unnecessary by computer users of a generation ago. Today's users do not always know which key to press on the keyboard at any particular time. In addition, today's computers include software applications that are much more interactive than past applications. No longer does a user enter information and then sit back and watch the computer process the data. Rather, the user typically interacts with the computer at each step along the way, viewing results on a display capable of showing thousands if not millions of different colors at any one time.
For example, today many popular software applications for computers are educational programs for children. Such programs usually allow the computer user, typically a child, to press a key on the keyboard. In response, the programs present a multimedia display to the child corresponding to that key. For example, pressing the letter `G` on the keyboard may show a multimedia presentation of an animal whose name begins with this letter--a giraffe, etc. This sort of interactive computer program was nearly nonexistent twenty years ago. However, the rapid increase in computer technology, along with the rapid decrease in price of that technology, has made these sorts of applications possible, and indeed, commonplace.
Nevertheless, even with this paradigm shift in computer technology and utilization, the primary input device for computers, the computer keyboard, has changed remarkably little. The computer keyboard has its historical roots in the typewriter keyboard, which has its keys organized in a particular layout commonly known as "QWERTY." As it is used in computer applications, the "QWERTY" keyboard acquired some other common characteristics, including a set of function keys located above the primary set of alphabetical and numerical keys, a set of numeric keys organized in what is commonly known as a ten-key arrangement, and frequently a set of cursor keys and other control keys (for such control commands as page up, page down, etc.). This basic layout has survived the rapid transition of the computer as a tool for business to be used by only skilled technicians to an appliance for the home to be used by average consumers not having any computer skills.
In recognition that the computer keyboard does not well serve today's computer users, several prior art have attempted to make a more user-friendly keyboard, at least for certain applications. Most prevalent has been a child-oriented keyboard. Such a keyboard typically has color-coded keys, so that unsophisticated computer users, such as children, can more easily discern, for example, numeric keys from alphabetic keys. Other prior art keyboards include keys which are oversized, or are interactive in that a particular multimedia presentation on the monitor of the computer is played when certain keys of the keyboard are pressed. However, although these sorts of keyboards may make the keyboard appear more inviting (e.g., through use of color-coded or oversized keys), or are interactive in that the computer immediately responds to the pressing of keys on the keyboard, they do not actually guide the user as to which key to press next.
This deficiency in computer keyboard technology is significant. Although a keyboard with oversized or color-coded keys may make the computer more inviting to a user, it does not appreciably assist the user as to which keys to press on the keyboard. Furthermore, an interactive keyboard in which specific multimedia presentations are tied to specific keys on the keyboard communicates with the computer in one direction only: the computer responds to the keyboard, but not vice-versa. There is a need, therefore, for a keyboard which is truly interactive, in that it guides the user as to which key to press next, or which of a group of keys can be pressed by the user.